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Hakkasan Golden Week Restaurant Review

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Hakkasan is one of the most happening places in London. This was abundantly obvious when we went to review it. It was packed out on a Tuesday night, filled with the great and good of London. When I went to the bathroom, I washed my hands next to three supermodels. The decor is stunning and everything about Hakkasan is glamourous and exciting.

We went to review the Golden Week, which celebrates the annual Chinese holiday Golden Week which is between the 29th September and 12th October. To mark Golden Week, the Michelin-starred restaurants feature limited edition authentic à la carte and set menus. In addition, guests who dine on the specialty menu will receive an exclusive gift in celebration of the holiday.

 

Golden Week is considered to be China’s biggest annual national holiday, spanning seven days in October where all workers are given three days of paid time off. Consequently it is a popular period of time when the Chinese travel significantly around the world to experience luxury offerings. Traditionally Golden Week takes place between 1st and 7th October, however Hakkasan will be offering the dedicated menus for a longer period of time to accommodate all travellers.

 

Executive Chef Tong of Hakkasan has created menus to cater specifically to traditional Chinese tastes. The set menu is £88.88 per person – celebrating the traditionally auspicious number 8 – and includes Peking duck with caviar; Dim sum platter; Spicy Szechuan rib-eye beef with enoki mushroom; Hakka stew pork belly; fried rice with diced abalone, and to finish, deep-fried sesame balls with green tea and peach. Golden Week à la carte menu includes equally authentic Chinese fare, such as Double boiled ginseng and Chinese herb soup with sea whelk; Braised claypot-cooked seabass and Fried tofu with spinach and seafood. A box containing hand-made golden Champagne and popping candy macarons are given at the end of the meal for each guest to take home as a gift.

To ensure the experience in the restaurants is enjoyable and efficient, Hakkasan has Mandarin-speaking staff on-site and in reservations, and accepts China Union Pay, the Chinese credit card of choice. Menus and websites will be Mandarin translated and staff will be fully trained in Chinese etiquette.

 

In addition to London, several Hakkasan restaurants around the world including Beverly Hills, Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco and Shanghai will also be celebrating Golden Week with exclusive menus in order to provide the experience to Chinese nationals who are travelling elsewhere. Each location’s menu will vary and offer a slightly different twist tailored to each location.

We started off by ordering mocktails. I have a Coco Passion and my colleague has a Kowloon Cooler. Both are delicious. Our starters come and we are very impressed. Presentation is amazing, service is excellent and we are already impressed before even trying anything.

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The food is amazing, as you would expect. Peking duck with caviar and a Dim sum platter. It is also unique. The duck is very special, not served like your usual duck, it is very neat and the pancake and duck is all together, sauce on the side with caviar on top. It is amazing. The dum sum platter is truly wonderful. These are the best dim sum we have ever had. Just exceptional.

When our mains arrive it really is something. The table really is not big enough: Huge Shrimp which is perfectly cooked, delicious Pak Choi, perfect Spicy Szechuan rib-eye beef with enoki mushroom; an amazing Roasted crispy chicken with wild mushroom in oyster sauce: Braised whole sea bass in clay pot which is perfectly cooked, the sauce is amazing and the fish is tender; Hakka stew pork belly which is just right; fried rice with diced abalone which is a particular favourite: creamy and in a delicious sauce. It is a feast and a rather superb one. The food is outstanding.

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To finish we have deep-fried sesame balls with green tea and peach. These are small and delicious. Perfect to end the meal. The waitress tells me Hakkasan has a lot of regular customers and they really love it when something like Golden Week happens as they get to try something different.

As we are leaving we are handed a beautiful gift bag which has some delicious macaroons inside. We have them the next day as we are so full. Hakkasan is an amazing restaurant, one of the best in London. We will definitely be back.

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Hakkasan Mayfair
Address: 17 Bruton St, London W1J 6QB
Phone:020 7907 1888
Hours: Open today · 12:00 pm – 12:30 am

http://hakkasan.com

 

 

Zoe Saldana: I Am ‘Expired’ at 36 Because of ‘Ageist’ Hollywood

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Guardians of The Galaxy star Zoe Saldana has called Hollywood out on its ageism, saying that the same ageist standards are not applied to men.

Zoe said it is “f**king ridiculous” that she is considered “expired” at the age of 36. She told The Sunday Telegraph’s Stella Magazine that she was offered the role as a love interest of an actor who was 30-years older than her. “I said ‘Eurgh, no f**king way’, they said ‘But Zoe, he’s the hottest actor’. I don’t give a  f*** how hot he is, I’m not going to endorse that — not until the day I see more romantic movies with Diane Keaton, Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep with young hot actors working as their sidekicks. Only then will I say yes.”

Go Zoe!

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If you want to be an actor, check out our editors book on How To Be a Successful Actor here.

 

 

Harry Styles Spotted Wearing Farah Menswear

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​One Direction star Harry Styles was spotted wearing Farah menswear while partying in London earlier this week.

​One Direction star Harry Styles ​One Direction star Harry Styles was spotted wearing Farah menswear while partying in London earlier this week.

What do you think of his look?

Dexter Star Hits Out At Ending ‘I Didn’t Even Watch It’

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Spoiler Alert

It seems it wasn’t just the fans who hated the ending of Dexter. Michael C Hall has spoken out about the controversial ending, saying he didn’t even watch it because he didn’t like it.

The ending, where Dexter ends up in a log cabin after faking his own death and being responsible for the death of his sister, Debbie, and then leaves his son and girlfriend to live in a self-imposed exile was widely slammed and some even called it a ‘betrayal’.

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Hall played the serial killer who only kills other serial killers for eight seasons. He told his feelings to The Daily Beast.

“Liked it? I don’t think I even watched it, I thought it was narratively satisfying – but it was not so savoury.” He said of the final episode.

“I think the show had lost a certain amount of torque, Just inherently because of how long we’d done it, because of the storytelling capital we’d spent, because our writers may have been gassed.Maybe some people wanted a more satisfying-maybe they wanted a happy ending for him, either a happy ending or a more definitive sense of closure. They wanted him to die or something, but I think the fact that he’s sort of exiled in a prison of his own making is, for my money, pretty fitting.”

 

 

The Kills In New Online Film Exploring Double Acts In Art

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In Unlock Art: Great Double Acts, The Kills investigate the importance of collaboration to the artistic process, and how artists have always collaborated in some form or other throughout history including Rubens, Jeff Koons, Gilbert & George and Jake and Dinos Chapman. The film challenges the popular myth: that art is made by solitary, angst-ridden artists, and reveals just how varied and abundant artistic creation can be when collaboration is involved.

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This is the sixth Unlock Art film in the series of eight produced in collaboration between Tate and Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts which aims to unlock the big stories and ideas behind art. Other presenters in the series include author and broadcaster Dawn O’Porter, HBO Girls star Jemima Kirke, actor Alan Cumming and new Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi.

Unlock Art aims to take viewers on a journey through various art movements and themes, from the history of the nude and humour in art, to Surrealism and Pop – offering the need-to-know facts, and making the arts more accessible to a wider audience.

Le Méridien ‘Unlock Art’ microsite: www.lemeridien.com/filmseries

#UnlockArt

PR Fired After Racist Aids Tweet

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Justine Sacco, formally the head of corporate communications for Barry Diller’s New York-based internet empire InterActive Corp, has been fired after a racist tweet which went viral while she was in the air for an 11-hour flight from London to Cape Town, where she flew to be with her family over Christmas. Sacco issued a statement on Sunday to the Star newspaper in South Africa. She also deleted the tweet and then her entire twitter account after landing. The tweet (below) was retweeted over 2000 times and went viral after Buzzfeed picked it up and the hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet trended.

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In her statement Sacco said she was in “anguish knowing that my remarks have caused pain to so many people. Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet.

There is an AIDS crisis taking place in this country, that we read about in America, but do not live with or face on a continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed firsthand.”

Sacco was born in South Africa and her father still lives there.

And the best response is this tweet from Ellie mac @ellenmc

 

What do you think?

Over Half of British Adults Put Important Moments in Life Down to Superstition

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Over half of all Brits (57%) believe in fate and 44% think it is responsible for one or more of life’s most important moments. According to a poll commissioned to mark the launch of Mystery Case Files: Fate’s Carnival which is released today, 28% of Brits put fate down as the reason why they found their partner or fell in love.

 

Big Fish commissioned the survey to see if fate really does play a part in people’s lives. The world’s largest producer of casual games found that it is not only love that people put down to fate. One in 10 people in the UK chose “getting a job” as something they’d put down to fate, rather than hard work.

 

Furthermore, the younger you are, the more likely it is that you will put life moments down to fate. For example 18% of 16-24 year olds put bumping into an old partner down to fate, whereas just 12% of those aged 55+ think the same.

 

The twists and turns of Mystery Case Files: Fate’s Carnival, in which Madame Fate (a gypsy fortune teller) has returned from the dead to reverse fate before it’s too late, may well appeal to the most superstitious part of the UK.  Overwhelmingly, the North East attracts the most believers in fate (69%) and 29% of people from the North East even said that “Having a ‘near miss’ with their own or a loved one’s life” was something they’d put down to fate.

 

Wales on the other hand is the most rational part of the UK where 54% say that they don’t believe in fate.

 

It is not just fate that we superstitious Brits believe in. Almost half of us (48%) read our horoscopes, with one in four (24%) checking their horoscopes once a month or more.

 

Women are the greater stargazers with 58% having looked at their horoscope, whilst men seem to be a little more sceptical. Thirty eight per cent of men are interested to see what the future holds according to the stars.

 

The British may be superstitious but when it comes to paranormal, we are scathing. Eighty three per cent of those studied have never seen a psychic of any sort and 73% would never go. Of the 27% of adults who would contemplate a visit, 46% would want to communicate with a loved one who had passed away and 19% would want to ask about their own or a loved one’s health and wellbeing. Whilst 19% of men who go to see a psychic do so to remove a curse from a loved one or themselves.

 

Interview with May I Kill U? Star Hayley-Marie Axe

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What did you think when you read the script?

I was intrigued and I couldn’t put it down. I did the nervous laugh thing that a lot of
people do when they first watch it, because you want to laugh at certain bits that you
really think you shouldn’t.

What made you take the role?

I really like Val’s character because on the outside she comes across as tough, but she
is vulnerable at the same time, which I can relate to. I thought she would be a very
interesting character to play and I could see myself playing her as soon as I read the
script.

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Any great on set stories?

We had to go out and practice riding our bikes whilst being supervised and Kevin got
told off quite a bit, I don’t think he did his cycling proficiency at school.

Do you have a favourite genre of film?

Action or comedy….depending on my mood.

How long did the film take to shoot?

About five weeks. Went very quickly though.
What was it like working with Kevin Bishop?

Entertaining.

How do you prepare for doing a film?

I always do lots of research on the team involved so I have an idea of the style, and
even more research on the characters and the story. For ‘May I kill U?’ I read up
on serial killers, rode my bike a lot and chatted up the rather attractive policemen at
Sloane Square station on the way to my audition to ask them questions, and I also had
several conversations with a female officer from my local police station, who was
very helpful.

Do you think horror and comedy naturally work well together?

Yes I think horror and comedy can work really well together-particularly dark
comedy, and there is a place in the market for it.

Do you think that the roles for women in film are improving?

Yes, I think roles for women are improving, but there are still many more roles for
men than there are for women.

What’s next for you?

I’m currently playing Katia in the action web-series ‘Next Global Crisis’, and Delilah
Crunch in the spin off ‘The Fail-Safe Sisters’.